'Beauty and the Beast' was one of several Broadway tuners that benefited from the President's Day weekend.
Broadway got a nice boost over Presidents' Day weekend, with grosses climbing around $2.6 million to a robust $16,497,521 for the week ended Sunday.
For individual shows, sales jumps of well over $100,000 were the norm. "Beauty and the Beast" ($700,618) shot up nearly $200,000 from the previous week. Both "The Producers" ($763,643) and "Chicago" ($538,944) rose by more than $175,000, and "The Color Purple" ($977,805) saw a bump of about $160,000.
Two smaller-scale tuners, "Avenue Q" ($468,633) and "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" ($412,879), played to auds of more than 98% of capacity -- an attendance level outdone only by the full houses of "Wicked" ($1,360,859) and "The Odd Couple" ($885,517).
"The Woman in White" ($572,688) and "Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life" ($292,850) both played their final week, with last-minute sales driving up grosses by more than $150,000 and $130,000, respectively.
Even "Barefoot in the Park" ($305,191) increased by nearly $75,000, despite a heavily comped, seven-perf opening week that yielded harsh reviews.
Contact Gordon Cox at
gordon.cox@variety.com